Donaghmore sewage treatment in progress

A once-respected Donaghmore family are refusing to engage in daily pleasantries in the village after their four-year-old son told his teacher about his future plans concerning employment and family. Toby Gallagher, who will be starting Donaghmore P.S. in September, was attending an induction day at the school when the Headmaster lined all the children up to ask them what they wanted to be when they grew up. Donaghmore, with its affluence and tendency to attract former landlords or those with aristocratic  ancestors, appeared to have its fair quota of potential doctors, solicitors, barristers and lawyers which seemed to please the Master greatly. Little Toby Gallagher was last in line. Mr Toner, the P2 teacher, takes up the story:

“The silence was deafening. The Master had received twenty-five favourable answers to the question (one said he wished to be an accountant but he let that go)  – probably the most promising batch we’d received in my time here – and with young Gallagher left it was looking like a clean-sweep. All heads turned to the lad as he jumped up onto the Master’s knee. Well, his answer will stay with us for a long time. He looked the Master in the eye and said, “I want to be the boy who sucks the shite clean out of the septic tank”. Well, you could’ve heard the thud from the mother hitting the ground. There was a muffled laugh from a couple of the P7s knocking about. It’s hard to see young Gallagher getting a place now. He said he wanted a husband too.”

It appears that the Gallaghers had been paid a visit the previous day by the man who normally does that job and young Gallagher was awestruck at the operation. Toby’s father, Paddy Gallagher OBE, attempted to salvage some respectability from the occasion by intimating that his young son was a great comedian but few appear to have accepted that explanation. The family are now considering moving to Pomeroy.